This photo taken on November 5, 2018 shows Papua New Guinea police on parade in Port Moresby, the host city for the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit from November 17. Papua New Guinea has deployed a multi-national force of warships, fighter jets and elite counter-terrorism troops to protect world leaders attending the APEC summit in its crime-plagued capital this week.

AFP/Ness Kerton

PNG police, soldiers storm parliament over unpaid APEC bonuses

(Agence France-Presse) - November 20, 2018 - 2:32pm

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — Papua New Guinea police and soldiers stormed the country's parliament Tuesday, smashing windows and furniture and demanding unpaid APEC bonuses just days after the international summit wrapped up, police and witnesses said.

The impoverished Pacific nation had rolled out the red carpet for visiting world leaders during the two-day conference, and even bought 40 Maseratis to ferry the dignitaries around.

"A group of policemen and soldiers are outside the parliament and demanding their APEC allowances," PNG police spokesman Dominic Kakas told AFP. He said that other police were "dealing with it".

No-one was known to be hurt, Kakas said, adding that he did not yet know how many police and soldiers were involved in the incident in the nation's capital Port Moresby.

A witness outside parliament told AFP "hundreds of police and troops" were standing on the front steps of parliament protesting that they had not been paid a special APEC allowance of 350 kina (US$104).

"The scene outside parliament is very tense. There are dozens of police cars and army vehicles," the witness said, adding that a nearby hotel was in lockdown and the protesters were blocking traffic.

Some locals in PNG, the poorest member of APEC, had expressed anger with the government's lavish expense for the summit, which came at a time when the developing nation of eight million people is battling a polio outbreak and the resurgence of malaria, while struggling to pay its teachers.